And another ...

More ...

And some Great North posters ...

Two Post

Some unposted stuff from previous years ...

One Post

One post a year for the last 2 years, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to top that in 2014.

Does that mean I'm bring this thing back to life? Not really. In fact, I'm not sure it was ever alive. I'm just posting stuff up here for me to keep check of what I've been up to, and hopefully that will somehow motivate me to do more.

Will it work? Let's see ...

Back.

2012

Just over a year - are you serious?

2012 has quite literally fallen into an abyss. I feel as though I have achieved nothing.

My Dad calls him the 'smiling assassin', but despite his budget blowouts and interests in mining some of New Zealand's most precious land, I'm 100% sure we'll be seeing just as much of Mr Key over the next 3 years.

Just for Kicks.

THIS
IS
NOT
A
TEST

The Appearance.

... 

Blogs are interesting things. How do you go about creating something interesting without sounding like a self-centred piece of arrogant trash? How do you freely express your thoughts and feelings without giving away the whole show? How do you write for an audience that may only consist of 4 people a week?

I for one do not have the answers.

But I, at the very least, will not pretend to be anymore important than I really am.

And never will be.

If you throw enough layers, textures, layer effects and masks at an image it's always going to turn out looking good. Or not - as the case may be with this image.

So much of this is random - There is next to no concept behind it. I just had a couple of hours and really wanted to post something new and somewhat interesting up.

There was also a story I wanted to tell, but that will have to wait till another lifetime. 

So much to say, with so few words to say it ...

Landscaping.

A quick sketch of another landscape.

Practice makes perverts.

A whole incomplete week.

This week has been a been a bit of a write off. 

A whole week and I have not posted anything. I tried getting something together, but I'm trying to produce higher quality images - meaning it takes more time.

Anyway, excuses, excuses - we'll see what happens.

In other news Mali Mali have made their EP free for a limited time - go download it now.

http://malimali.bandcamp.com/album/brotherly

From here.

A move back to the quick scratchy stuff ...

... through a city.

Is this finished? Who knows... I may come back to it over the next few days.

Haven't been posting a lot lately. I lost my voice, plus this has taken me a little while.

A walk ...

Haters be sayin' I can't lay down a cityscape.

Haters are probably right ... but we'll see how it goes.

So anyway, it's March now and this is my 22 post for 2011. Not too bad considering I only posted 30 times in all the previous years combined. But this journey is a funny thing. The more I study, the more I draw, the more I attempt to create something I'm truly happy with, the further from my goal I feel. Never before have I realised just how limited my ability and knowledge of illustration is. But I guess, until you do something, you never really know how bad you are.

How many times have you looked at a piece of art and thought to yourself "What's so special about that? I could have done it". I have this thoughtall the time, however the now obvious difference between myself and the artist is this; as much as I could have produced the exact same thing - I didn't.

Art and design is about time as much as it is about ability.

There are only a limited number of hours in everyday. And how you choose to spend these hours will define you. Bringing this back to my drawings and what I do, I've realised there are many roads in art, but unless I want to become a 'master of none' I can only travel a few.

So what will these be? Do I pick up the pencil more often, should I throw some paint around a canvas? Should I attempt some screen printing? Do I keep doing these quick Photoshop paintings or should I stop trying to punch images out as fast as possible and begin to focus more on the details? Should I venture into more vector art like Timba Smits and like him, combine illustration with design? Or try my hand at making type beautiful, like Jessica Hische?

In the end I guess picking a medium and method is a journey of discovery. 

I just wish our time on the journey didn't have to be so short.

Test.

Recently I was asked to produce a pencil sketch of a sexy, amazon woman, in action and in a reasonable amount of time.

This is the result.

While it may be far from perfect, I think the exercise was definitely worthwhile. It's been a long time since I took a pencil drawing seriously. Usually I rush them, keeping their purpose only for a base to later complete in Photoshop. The thought of not having any layers or 'Apple + Z' was surprisingly frightening.

Dream.

Early.

 

And while I'm at it - as I was brushing my teeth I had a desire to draw something new.

I thought I'd post the beginning sketch, as it might make an interesting 'before and after' type thing.

Below.

While I generally hate to explain what I do and why I do it, before too many people begin to question my emotional stability, I feel as though I should give a little insight to the image below.

I very recently came across the book '100 Months' by John Hicklenton. I've never followed any of his work in the past, but instantly I was captured by the dark and disturbing illustrations that feature throughout the novel. I felt they had a strong sense on honesty to them. 

This honesty proved to be true, as 100 Months is Hicklenton's final work. He was battling MS and in the end chose to take his own life rather than have the disease take it for him. Serious stuff.

So anyway, with this still fresh in my mind and an hour or so to kill - I drew the 'The Face'.